In the present research, psychological states of elderly people in the process of raising plants were analyzed by means of brain waves and semantic differential technique.
The experiment carried out from October 2004 to January 2005. Subjects were ten elderly individuals (mean age, 70.5 years) and ten young individuals (mean age, 21.0 years). Each subject raised three kinds of plants (Pachira glabra Pasq., Myrtillocactus geometrizans Console and Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs.) for ten weeks in his or her house. At the zeroth, second, sixth and tenth week of the experiment, the subjects brought their plants to a laboratory at Ehime University. In the laboratory, the psychological states of the subjects in seeing their plants in front of them were evaluated by brain wave and semantic differential technique. The Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs. of most subjects lost its flowers and leaves and declined in appearance at approximately the sixth week.
The ratio of alpha wave to beta wave calculated an index of the degree of calmness of psychological state. As for the elderly subjects, the differences of the ratios of alpha wave to beta wave between the evaluated plants became smaller according to the raising weeks. The influence of the deterioration of the Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs. on the psychological states of the elderly subjects was not observed. The semantic differential data were almost the same the brain waves data. These results indicated that elderly people's psychological states became stable and calm in the process of raising plants.

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We investigate the effects of nitrogen source in medium on plant regeneration from somatic embryos in cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum Mill.). Nitrate was essential for germination of somatic embryos, since no germination was observed on the medium without nitrate except for a small quantity of vitamins. Somatic embryos could effectively germinate on half-strength modified MS media containing either 20 mM KNO₃ or 2 mM NH₄Cl + 18 mM KNO₃. The effects of gellan gum concentration on plant regeneration from the somatic embryos were also investigated. The greatest number of plantlets with roots and leaves developed on media containing 1.0% gellan gum. No hyperhydric plants were observed in media containing 1.0 or 2.0% gellan gum, and the percentage of hyperhydric plants was highest in the media containing 0.25% gellan gum.

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The effects of peptone and culture vessel on in vitro morphogenesis in shoot formation of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and S. integrifolium Poir were examined. Peptone had effect on reducing hyperhydric shoots. On the other hand, culture vessels with gas-permeability by membrane filter reduced the percentage of hyperhydric shoots as compared to sealed vessels. After transplanting to soil, the survival rate of shoots obtained from the gas-permeable vessels was higher than those from the sealed vessels.
Abnormally shaped stomata compared to those formed in vivo were observed in leaf blades of hyperhydric shoots by using scanning electron microscope. Many leaf blades of non-hyperhydric shoots in sealed vessels also had abnormally shaped stomata.

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The effect of different night temperatures on constituents in strawberry fruits (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) was investigated using two cultivars, Toyonoka and Nyoho, which were grown in a climatron. Among the three temperatures tested, the longest fruit maturity period was observed at 23/10°C (day/night), while the shortest was observed at 23/20°C. Fruit weight tended to decrease with the increase of temperatures at night. Sugar content significantly decreased at 23/20°C. No difference in organic acid content was observed in Toyonoka, while increased night temperatures tended to increase organic acid contents in Nyoho. In addition, a lower sugar-acid ratio was remarkable at 23/20°C in both cultivars. There a difference in total amino acid content observed in these two cultivars. The effect of night temperatures depended upon each amino acid produced in these two cultivars. It was observed that asparagine, glutamic acid and alanine content at 23/20°C were less than those at 23/10°C. A decrease in content of reduced ascorbic acid was observed with an increase in night temperatures, while no difference of oxidized ascorbic acid content was observed among the night temperatures tested. Increased anthocyanin content was observed with an increase in night temperatures and its composition was not affected by the varied temperatures. The level of ellagic acid content at 23/20°C was higher than that at 23/10°C. The degree of increases in ellagic acid content caused by the increases in night temperatures was higher in Nyoho than that in Toyonoka.

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In order to micropropagate Sandersonia aurantiaca efficiently, investigated the combination and concentration of plant growth regulators and L-proline. The adventitious buds formation from ovule in primary culture was observed at the medium containing NAA and BAP, and 0.27 μM NAA and 2.22 μM BAP promoted those formation. By the subculture on the medium containing 0.54 μM NAA and 11.1 μM BAP after culturing on the primary culture medium containing 0.27 μM NAA and 2.22 μM BAP, high frequency of adventitious buds and multiple buds formation was observed. The formation rate of adventitious buds and multiple buds 4.5 months after culturing were 69.6% and 34.8% respectively under darkness. Although the supplement of L-proline to medium did not promote embryogenesis in subculture, adventitious buds and multiple buds formation in subculture were promoted by supplement of L-proline, and those formation rates in 2.61mM L-proline were 91.3 and 43.5% respectively.

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CaCl₂ has been known to have an ability to suppress the senescence of cut flowers. In the present study, investigated the effect of CaCl₂ on the antioxidative enzyme activities in cut flowers of Rosa hybrida and Dendrobium phalaenopsis during postharvest storage. The activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidase in the cut flowers with treatment of 45 mM CaCl₂ in vase water were higher than those without CaCl₂ during storage. These results suggest that calcium ion can contribute to the quality maintenance of cut flowers through activating the antioxidative enzyme activities.

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Grading systems to inspect various agricultural products using imaging technologies have been increasingly introduced and utilized in Japan recently. Among many kinds of fruits, tomato is one of the most difficult fruits to be inspected by image processing because of following reasons: 1) tomato fruits whose peel colors vary from almost green to completely mature red are shipped depending seasons. 2) defects whose colors are similar with fruit peel and whose sizes are very thin like “stitching” also should be detected. 3) defects, which are similar with color of immature fruit peel at shipping time, sometimes become conspicuous by its different color from mature fruit peel color at purchasing. 4) calyxes are sometimes have similar colors with cracks around them and their shadows may be misunderstood as defects. 5) defect type depends on fruit side and each defect level is different.
In this paper, a tomato fruit inspection system with six color TV cameras is described and its experimental results to grade tomato fruits with many types of defects are discussed. From the top view, “blossom end” and general defects were recognized by color and detected edges. Those defects were properly judged through their maximum lengths and area. From the side views, “stitching” and other defects detected, but it was considered that an algorithm to match side views with their top view should be investigated for a further precise measurement of the defects. From the bottom view, it was observed that calyx recognition and crack detection sometimes were difficult because the calyx size, color, shape and freshness changed from time to time and from fruit to fruit. To understand defect type and level, the resolution of image sensor and gray level should be increased and the recognition algorithm should be improved.

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Recently agricultural product grading machines based on imaging technologies have been spread widely at cooperative associations in Japan. In this paper, experiments on feature extraction of tomato color and shape conducted by use of top images of various color and shape tomato, because these are the most important information for agricultural product grading to enhance its market value. From above, following results were obtained. 1) An index based a red and green color component ratio gave similar results with human evaluation. 2) Indices using distances between center of gravity and boundary pixels were effective for shape evaluation to eliminate influence of ellipse shape by a transformation method from ellipse to circle. 3) It was possible to grade various shape fruits by the combination of three different indices, because they are complement to each other for uncertain shape evaluation. 4) Adjusting the setting values of indices depending on fruit size made possible to get practical grading results, which were similar to the human evaluation.

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A treatment system using nutrient solution in hydroponics was developed for year-round stable production of high-quality vegetables. It is possible for quartz porphyry to control the quality of nutrient solution effectively. These qualities include viscosity, because of its pH dependent charge and exchangeable cation. The components system included air pump, a submerged pump and quartz porphyry. Quartz porphyry weighing 10 kg was put into the stainless steel layer in a water tank (0.3m³ volume) and nutrient solution was pumped into the layer by the submerged pump.
The viscosity of nutrient solution in a komatsuna (Brassica rapa L. nothovar)-growing NFT system was decreased by the treatment, which might affect the absorption of nutrient solution by komatsuna plants, because the movement of the water can be influenced by viscosity.
It would be necessary to quantitatively evaluate the relationship between the viscosity of nutrient solutions and the absorption of ions by the roots. Komatsuna plants receiving the treated nutrient solution grew faster and contained more total free amino acid.
The results suggested that the nutrient solution treatment system could be effective for the production of high-quality vegetables.

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In this study, light emitting diodes (LEDs) used sole light source to study the effects of monochromatic light plant cultivation. (were) Seedlings of eggplant, leaf lettuce and sunflower were irradiated at 50, 100 and 150μmol m ^-2 s^-1 PPFD of blue, blue-green, green and red monochromatic lights, respectively. On 25 days from the start of monochromatic light irradiation for eggplant and leaf lettuce and on 42 days from the start of monochromatic light irradiation for sunflower, seedlings were harvested and measured. Stem elongation of eggplant and sunflower were obviously promoted under blue light, and slightly promoted under other monochromatic lights. However, stem elongation of leaf lettuce was promoted under red, green and blue-green lights, but markedly suppressed under blue light. Furthermore, changes in the ratio of petiole length to total leaf length depended on plant species and light quality. These findings indicated that growth responses to respective monochromatic lights differed among plant species.

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